


Into The Wilderness

by zalrb



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 05:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17933417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zalrb/pseuds/zalrb
Summary: When a new pack of werewolves come to Mystic Falls to kill Klaus, Tyler gets caught in the crosshairs and Caroline asks Bonnie for help. What Bonnie doesn't expect is the immediate attraction she has with the pack leader, Jel, and the connection that follows.





	Into The Wilderness

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if this is something I'll continue, let me know if you'd like it to be. I was asked on tumblr what my HEA for Bonnie Bennett would be and I came up with a werewolf character and was asked to make a drabble about them meeting so I did. There was also a vote on who would play this character on the show and Aldis Hodge won. I thought I'd post it here too!

Caroline was pounding on the door. “Bonnie! Bonnie, please open up. It’s Tyler. He’s in trouble!” More pounding. “Bonnie, _please!”_

                The knocking was a thundering in Bonnie’s head. She’d only had a couple hours sleep after spending the night poring over grimoires, trying to find a way to defeat Klaus.

                She opened the door, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What’s going on?”

                Caroline sighed in relief. “There’s a pack of werewolves in Mystic Falls,” she said.

                Bonnie hadn’t fully woken up yet, she failed to see what Caroline expected her to do. “OK.”

                “I need you to talk to them.”

                Bonnie pulled her robe tighter together. “Caroline, I don’t speak wolf.”

                She tilted her head to the side. “But you do speak magic.”

                “I don’t get it, why do you want me to talk to them? Tyler—”

                “This is what I’m trying to tell you, they _have_ Tyler.” It was then that Bonnie noticed the frenzied panic in Caroline’s expression. “They want to kill Klaus.”

                She was awake now. “They _what?”_

                “That’s why they’re here. Bonnie, if they go through with this and manage to kill Klaus, all of us could be dead.” She paused. “Your mother could die.”

                “OK.” Bonnie’s mind started to race with different possibilities and outcomes. “Did you tell anyone about this? Elena? Stefan?”

                “I was going to—”

                “Don’t,” said Bonnie. “Not yet.”

                “Bonnie, do you get that we could die? Unless… did you find a way to break the sire line yet or find a way to take down Klaus without killing him?”

                “I’m working on —”

                “So then what am I supposed to do?”

                “We’re going to talk to them,” said Bonnie. “And if we tell Elena or Stefan about this, Damon might find out and I don’t want another war with the werewolves, Caroline.”

                Caroline sighed. “I just want to get Tyler back.”

                “OK,” said Bonnie. “Do you know where they have him?”

                She nodded.

                “Give me a second to get ready and then we’ll go.”

                                                                                                                                              *

They’d been walking in the woods for fifteen minutes, going deeper than they normally ventured.  

“They’re really far in,” said Bonnie.

“We’d get there sooner if you picked up the pace,” Caroline muttered.

“Not all of us have super human speed, Caroline,” said Bonnie.

“I know, I’m sorry,” she said “I’m just worried about Tyler.”

It was another couple of minutes before they made it to a clearing and Bonnie figured that they were near, if not in, the werewolf camp. Even though there was no one in sight, she could feel eyes on her, sense the presence of the supernatural; it called to the magic within her.  

Caroline stopped and tensed.

“They’re here,” she said.

“I know,” said Bonnie.

In an instant, a group of twelve men and women emerged from behind trees and bushes, one of them held onto a bound and gagged Tyler. He looked angry but otherwise unharmed.

“Tyler!” Caroline was about to speed forward when he shook his head to stop her. She glared at them.

“You gagged him?” she yelled.

“Only because he wouldn’t shut up,” said a brunette woman.

A man looked at Bonnie and scoffed. “The vampire brought a human to make her case?”

Before Bonnie could answer, a voice sounded from the trees. “She’s not just a human. She’s a witch.”

                A man, not much older than them, stepped out from behind the trees, dark-skinned and broad-shouldered. Immediately, Bonnie could tell that he was the pack leader: he exuded an air of authority and power but without the smugness of superiority — he had an earthiness to him that was both intense and approachable and the other wolves looked to him with deference.

                “A Bennett,” he continued.

                Bonnie raised an eyebrow, regarding him. He held her gaze as he walked into the clearing, staying on the opposite side of her and Caroline. His stare made her feel strange but not unpleasant — connected, somehow. Drawn in. He was handsome, rugged, but that wasn’t the source of the flutter in her chest, the sudden heaviness of her breathing that he seemed to be experiencing as well. Whatever it was, it felt almost ethereal. 

“How do you know that?” she asked.

He grinned. “Because it’s obvious.”

“Obvious,” she repeated. “What, like you have a radar or something?”

His grin widened to a smile. “Or something.”

When Bonnie furrowed her eyebrows, he laughed. “It’s the woods,” he said, gesturing to the trees around him. “It hums with your magic.”

“Jel,” said one of the pack. “What are you doing telling her this?”

He didn’t answer and Bonnie raised her head sceptically. “What makes you so special that you can sense that?”

“Werewolves aren’t like vampires,” he said. “We’re connected to the earth, not like witches obviously, but _most_ of us,” he glanced at Tyler, “aren’t tourists in the wilderness, we spend most of our time in it. Doesn’t it make sense to learn it, become one with it?” 

“Then how come he couldn’t tell I was a witch.” She looked at the man who spoke first.

Jel shrugged. “Some of us are more ignorant than others.”

Bonnie pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh at his joke when Caroline spoke, her tone impatient and forceful. She’d forgotten she was there.

“Well if you can sense her magic, you can sense how powerful she is,” she said. “Is that really something you want to mess with?”

“Are you threatening us?” said a woman.

“It may not be the full moon but we outnumber you ten to one,” said another.

“You have no idea what my friend can do,” said Caroline. “None of you stand a chance.”

Bonnie raised her hands. “We don’t want a bloodbath.”

Jel crossed his arms. “Then what do you want, Bennett?”

“Well for one, let our friend go,” said Bonnie.

He leaned against a boulder. “Can’t do that,” he said in a tone that sounded genuinely apologetic. “He might do something stupid.”

“Trying to stop you from killing him isn’t doing something stupid,” snapped Caroline.

“Trying to stop us from killing Klaus is,” he countered.

“Look, we are not in the business of defending Klaus Mikaelson but did you know that killing one Original vampire can kill his entire line?” said Caroline. “That includes Tyler, that could include me.”

Bonnie stared at Jel, her eyes blazing. “That could include my mother.”

Jel’s expression softened slightly. “That’s unfortunate,” he said.

There was a beat when Caroline threw her hands up in the air. “Really? Is that all you have to say?”

“Unfortunately personal losses are a given during war,” said Jel.

“And what would you know? It’s not you who’s dying, it’s not your friends,” said Caroline.

Jel’s eyes flashed with anger and as he took a step forward, the pack encroached upon them, the woman holding Tyler, tightening her grip. Caroline adopted a readied stance.

“Don’t you dare tell me about what losses I have or haven’t encountered, vampire,” said Jel. “All of them at the hands of your kind. I’m not here for a vacation.”

Pain shaded his tone and it was a pain that Bonnie could feel in her gut. 

“We’re sorry,” she said.

Caroline looked at her. “We are?”

“This isn’t why we came here, Caroline.”

“No,” she said. “We came for Tyler and to stop them from killing us!”

Jel relaxed and then looked at Bonnie. “Take a walk with me.”

The other wolves looked at him incredulously.

“A walk,” said Bonnie.

“Yes, away from here. I promise Tyler will remain unharmed, the blonde vampire will stay to make sure of that.”

Caroline grabbed Bonnie by the arm turned her around so their backs were facing the pack.

“Bonnie, don’t,” she muttered through clenched teeth.

Bonnie looked behind her to Jel who hadn’t taken his eyes off her. She felt an odd kind of familiarity and an earnestness, a passion.  She shook her head slightly and looked back at Caroline.

“He won’t hurt me,” she said.

“Are you serious? He’s the enemy.”

“Honestly, Caroline, I don’t think he is.”

Caroline looked at her like she was crazy. “Why are you so quick to trust him?”

“I don’t know, I have a feeling.”

“A _feeling?”_

Bonnie stared at her. “You trusted Tyler wouldn’t hurt you when he first turned.”

“That’s different, we’ve known Tyler since we were kids.”

“And he was an ass for most of that time,” she said.

Caroline raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“I love Tyler, Caroline,” said Bonnie. “But he wasn’t the most reliable guy when we were growing up, becoming a werewolf changed him and I’m just saying that there was something in Tyler that made you trust him even though he could literally kill you with one bite.”

“Bonnie, you’re my best friend and we need you. I can’t just let you go off with a werewolf pack leader, if anything happened to you—”

“It won’t,” she said. “I can’t tell you how I know that but I just do. I’ll be safe with him. I promise.” Before Caroline could protest anymore, Bonnie turned back around and looked at Jel.

“Let’s go,” she said.

                                                                                                                                        * 

 They walked even deeper in the woods, the first few minutes in a silence that was both comfortable and tense, _charged._ A part of Bonnie wanted the walk to last forever.

“What’s your name?” said Jel finally.

She looked at him. “Really? That’s where you want to start.”

“It feels weird to call you ‘Bennett’ all the time,” said Jel. “And it’s a little unfair that you have my name and I don’t have yours.”  

“Don’t pretend like you didn’t hear Caroline say my name back there.”

He grinned. “Touche,” he said. “Bonnie Bennett.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I knew it.” 

He turned to her, his eyes passing over her face. “You live up to Lucy’s description of you.”

Those words struck her in the chest. She stopped walking. Jel stopped a few paces ahead of her and turned around, his expression serious.  

“She said you’re one of the good ones,” he continued. “I sense that about you.”

Bonnie didn’t say anything.

“Do you sense that about me?” he asked.

She gaped at him for a minute, wrong-footed by the question. Her eyes fluttered slightly as she tried to think of something to say, she wanted to be more wary, more suspicious but she ended up nodding. He closed his eyes briefly in what looked like relief.

“But that doesn’t mean that I condone you trying to kill my friends,” she said.

“I’m not trying to kill your friends, or your family, I’m trying to kill a tyrannical psychopath.”

“Unfortunately in this situation, doing one is also doing the other.”

“Did you know that werewolves are basically extinct?” said Jel, walking up to her. “Vampires have been trying to eradicate us for centuries. We’ve gone into hiding, kept to ourselves and now Klaus Mikaelson is hunting us down and trying to turn us into hybrids for his own private army. It won’t be long before none of us are left. I need to do something.”

“And your answer is killing thousands of vampires? Because that’s what’s going to happen if you take Klaus out.”

“I have no love-loss for the creatures who’ve been hunting my people for much longer than either of us have been alive,” he said. “But I don’t relish the thought of murdering thousands of them. I relish the thought of keeping my pack, and whatever packs are left, safe.”

“And you don’t think that killing Klaus, killing all those vampires will just keep this war going?”

Jel shook his head. “It’s not those vampires that you’re worried about, it’s your friends. Everything you do is for them, is to protect them. That blonde vampire—”

_“Caroline,”_ said Bonnie.

“Caroline,” Jel corrected. “She spoke about you more like a secret weapon than a friend.”

Bonnie’s jaw tightened. “How arrogant of you to make judgements based on one encounter.”  

“And how arrogant of you to come here thinking that your friends’ lives are more important than an entire race of werewolves.”

 Bonnie licked her lips and then bit her lower one. Everything about this argument was strange. She wasn’t angry or offended, she was inspired by his passion and felt deeply for his cause. She could recognize the same admiration for her in his eyes.

“I’ve been trying to find a way to incapacitate Klaus without killing him,” she said. “And I _will_ find one.”

Jel quirked his eyebrow. “Really? Just you? It all falls on your shoulders?” 

“It wouldn’t if you helped me.”

Bonnie didn’t know what made her say it but she felt a sudden aching to not only have him on their side but to have him by _her_ side. She walked closer to him, her eyes searching his. She could hear his quiet inhale as she put both hands on his shoulders. 

“Help me stop him,” she said. “Without the consequences of killing him. I will not hide anything from you, we’ll be doing this together.”

He stared at her for a long time and she felt the way she did in the clearing, like there was nothing around but them.

“I’ll have to talk to my pack,” he said quietly. “But I think we have a deal.”

Bonnie kept his gaze. “I can trust you.”

He nodded. “As a show of good faith, I will let Tyler go.”

She closed her eyes. “Thank you.”

Jel regarded her before brushing Bonnie’s hair out of her face, it was a gesture she didn’t expect but what she expected even less was the spark that electrified her when her fingertip brushed her skin.

“I look forward to working with you, Bonnie Bennett.” 

And he started heading back to the clearing.


End file.
